Christmas Day Part 2

I was woken by a crash and a colourful expression from the kitchen. I assumed at first it was Charlie, tripping over the pile of children's wellies by the back door. Imagine my surprise, therefore, to see a tall, slim man wearing leather drainpipe trousers, a purple shirt and mirrored sunglasses staggering through the door carrying what looked like a cross between a guitar case and a body bag.

I glanced at Minnie. She was busy headbanging with her eyes fixed on her drum kit and so hadn't noticed a thing. No clues there as to how to respond to this intruder.

I looked at the man more closely. Purple, black and white stripey hair. Diamond nose stud. Age....difficult to tell. I felt I should know who he was. There was a tantalising sense of familiarity about him.

"Hey, Great-Grandma!" he said. "Biocheck!"

He extended his left hand. I looked at it dubiously. The fingertips were a matt, metallic blue.

"How do you do?" replied my mouth on autopilot. My right hand extended by its own volition towards my unexpected visitor.

The man rolled his eyes. "Biocheck, Great-aunt Minnie!" he yelled. Minnie nodded, extended her left hand, and they performed a well-practised finger dance together. I inferred that James has already taken her to visit her family in the twenty-second century.

"You must be Virus," I said, suddenly feeling old.

James appeared from behind his grandson. "Virus helped me bring your present in," he said, nodding towards the guitar case / body bag.

"How lovely!" I said. "Would you like a cup of tea, Virus? I'll just put the kettle on." I disappeared into the kitchen, locked the door and sat down on the pile of wellies to regain my composure.

When I had recovered enough to set a tray with teapot, cups, milk and a large plate of mince pies, I found Virus, sitting in my armchair, chatting aimiably with Minnie. I noticed that he had taken his shoes and socks off, and placed them neatly by his chair. I also noticed that he had taken his sunglasses off. His eyes glowed green in the gloom of the darkening sitting room.

"Tea, Virus?" I asked, in a surprisingly calm voice. "Er. Vincent. Vincent Russell Dunwich. Mr Dunwich?" How was I supposed to address him, I wondered. He's my great-grandson, is over seventy years old, yet he looks my age, dresses like a teenager and talks like nothing I have ever heard even in my most cheese-inspired dreams.

[To be continued]

Christmas Day Part 1

Well, THAT was a Christmas that we won't forget in a hurry!

The children had set up a trip-wire to catch Father Christmas. Charlie used some very expressive language when he fell over it, which fortunately failed to wake the children.

On Christmas morning we were woken at 7:00 am to the strains of Slade’s "Merry Christmas" played at top volume through a loudspeaker system that James had rigged up.  As it happens I am an early riser by nature. Charlie isn’t, so the children learned a few more colourful expressions. I got up and made the breakfast.

After breakfast we all sat down and opened our presents around the tree.  James had a new webcam, which he was very pleased with and he spent much of the morning installing it on his computer. It appears to be compatible with both Skype and Ouija for Windows.

Minnie had an electronic drum kit. I noted with satisfaction that it has both a volume control and an earphone socket. She can be loud  without disturbing the neighbours.

Charlie got a variable speed jiggery-poker. This is apparently a very useful bit of kit when one is building a dalek. You need it for getting the eyestalks aligned properly or something. He tried to explain but I made an excuse and went to prod the Brussels Sprouts.

I got a new hard-drive (I had filled up the old one with all audio books from librivox.org) and a Geek’s Kitchen Apron. It has twenty-seven pockets for different utensils, and a built-in jam thermometer, timer and calorie counter. James claims that Steven Hawking has one. I doubt that, but I’m prepared to believe that Professor Hawking’s mother has one.

Harry the Geek came round, played with all the children’s presents, ate Christmas lunch with us and then disappeared with Charlie to discuss eyestalks and try out the jiggery-poker. James, who had been watching the snow with gloom all week, observed with delight that it had melted, and disappeared in the direction of his workshop. Minnie settled down to bang and crash silently along with "Queen’s Greatest Hits".

I settled down on the sofa to listen to some LingQ Japanese lessons.

(Continued tomorrow)